Managing for successful customer acquisition: an exploration

Given all the recent attention dedicated by academics, consultants and practitioners to customer retention, customer acquisition has become a secondary concern. Yet, customer acquisition is of major importance and demands attention as the first stage of the customer life-cycle. Our research shows that companies are not particularly skilled at managing the customer acquisition process. For example, less than half have a dedicated customer acquisition plan. Only one variable distinguishes companies that excel at customer acquisition - they have a budget dedicated to customer acquisition activities. Other variables examined - the presence of an executive responsible for customer acquisition, an understanding of the economics of customer acquisition, and the deployment of CRM technologies to support customer acquisition - are not associated with excellence at customer acquisition.